Brian Haines, IFMA Information Technology Community (ITC) board member and Senior Director at Johnson Controls, highlights four traits shared by organizations that succeed with workplace management technology—from clear goals to strategic employee engagement and reliable data. Here’s how to make your tech investment count.
Just 20 years ago, organizations seeking to understand how their office space was utilized had to conduct manual surveys that involved walking through the space and counting how many people occupied different areas. To gather meaningful insights into usage patterns and trends these types of manual surveys needed to be performed regularly. Today, Internet of Things (IoT) sensors do the job in real time, offering insights not just into where people are, but why they’re there—or not.
This is just one of countless use cases for workplace management technology that can be game-changing for organizations. Besides occupancy and environmental sensors, workplace management solutions include workplace analytics and space planning tools, room and desk booking software, and visitor management systems. The 2025 FM:Systems Inside the Workplace survey found that 85% of organizations were using at least one of these solutions, and 82% were planning to implement one or more of them in the next year.
But widespread adoption isn’t the same as widespread success.
Although this technology will satisfy the expectations of many of the organizations that adopt it, others may find it challenging to achieve a return on their investment. The extent to which businesses succeed will depend on factors such as the sophistication of their data strategy and their ability to encourage user adoption.
Companies that have effectively harnessed the power of workplace management solutions have some traits in common. Here are four traits that set high-performing organizations apart.
1. Clear Vision and Collaborative Procurement
Organizations that are successful in implementing workplace management technology start out with a clear vision for what they’re hoping to achieve. They focus on one specific problem they want to solve and make an effort to understand and quantify how that problem affects their business. To bring the best solution into focus, they consult with stakeholders and representatives from every impacted department. This holistic approach enables them to establish realistic goals, solidify what success looks like, and measure their progress toward those goals. Once those goals are met and progress is sustained, these organizations can simply repeat the process for other problems they want to solve.
Having a clear vision for what they want to accomplish with a workplace management solution makes it easier to communicate the vision to colleagues across the business, whose buy-in is essential to success.
2. Two-Way Listening with Stakeholders
While communicating a clear vision is key to success, that outreach can’t be a one-way street. Companies that are able to maximize the benefits of workplace management solutions invite input from a broad range of stakeholders but also pay special attention to the end users. Procurement and deployment process may require the involvement of departments like IT, HR and Finance; however, end users usually have the expertise in current practices that the new technology is intended to improve. This makes them uniquely qualified to know how effective a potential solution is likely to be and highlight possible obstacles to adoption.
When users are ignored, adoption suffers. When they’re heard, they become champions.
The perfect solution can quickly become a big problem if nobody uses it. Ramming through changes without the input and buy-in of end users is likely to make adoption an uphill battle.
3. Strategic Employee Engagement
Getting end users involved in the ideation of a solution is only the first step in building support for the rollout of workplace management technology. Businesses that see high user uptake as soon as a new solution comes online can begin to reap the benefits of it immediately – get there by engaging with users in various, strategic ways. This can include pre-training sessions, a “train-the-trainer” program, and periodic surveys to measure employee sentiment about the change. This consistent, two-way engagement helps address concerns before they can become misperceptions, while providing an opportunity to reinforce the benefits of the new technology for end users as well as the organization.
An organization that has all three of these characteristics is on the right track. But there’s one more trait that’s critical to workplace management tech success.
4. High-Quality, Well-Managed Data
How effective do you think a room booking system would be if you neglected to tell it how many rooms are available to be booked? As impressive as it is, workplace management technology without good data is like a supercar without fuel. That doesn’t mean an organization has to have a full-blown data strategy, but businesses that get the most out of their new solutions ensure that at least the data needed to support their primary objective is accurate, timely and complete. They also have policies and practices in place to maintain compliance with data privacy requirements.
Missing a Trait? You’re Not Alone
Few companies nail all four traits from the start. The good news? Help is out there.
Organizations should not have to choose between holding off on their plans or rushing into a deployment that may fail. There are countless resources online for leveling up in all these areas, from data strategy frameworks to sample employee engagement surveys. The right workplace management technology partner will also help you fill gaps in these areas. After all, they have a vested interest in making sure your implementation exceeds expectations.
Bonus Resource
Check out our latest Space Management Tool RoundUp HERE featuring demo options for proven brands such as Eptura, Tango, OpenBlue Workplace, Modo, HubStar and more. Each brand also shares their own unique key industry resources including podcasts, research reports and on demand webinars.
Final Thoughts: Strategy First, Tech Second
Success with workplace tech doesn’t require perfection—just purpose.
With a strong foundation built on collaboration, listening, engagement, and data integrity, you can avoid the pitfalls of a “tech-first, plan-later” approach and start turning technology into tangible workplace improvements.
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